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EFA Festival in Focus | Klarafestival

Simon Mundy, in interview with Klarafestival’s Managing Director, Sophie Detremmerie, looks at its history and current success

Some
festivals stay throughout their existence much as they were at the start.
Others grow but keep their basic original structure. And some evolve, mutate,
have children. Then, without leaving home, the children develop distinctive
characters of their own. So it is with the Flanders Festival and its offspring,
Klara.

Flanders
Festival is effectively an umbrella for independent programmes held in each of
northern Belgium's major cities. Every town has its specially allotted time of
year but the constituent cities also collaborate with each other so that there
is a network effect. For the audience there is just a solid succession of high
quality events. For the organisers there is individual focus and a degree of
safety in numbers.

Klarafestival
happens is central Brussels each March. It is named after the main classical
music station of Flemish Public Radio but, although almost all the concerts are
broadcast live, the programming is completely the responsibility of Flanders
Festival – Brussels. “We always keep the radio in mind,” says festival Managing
Director, Sophie Detremmerie, “but our events go much wider than that. Music
theatre can give the radio problems so not all of it is suitable but we make
sure that Radio Klara has something to put out every night.”

The Flanders
Festival itself is fifty years old but the Klarafestival is much younger. “In
the early 2000s Jan Briers (now President of EFA) realised we had to fight to
define our place in the arts landscape and he took inspiration from the BBC
Proms in London.” It started as a project, integrated into the general festival
but gradually Klara established its own identity and slot in the year and the
programmes of its venues.

Finding
a distinctive place in the crowded artistic calendar of a capital city is
always difficult, and is made harder when the main events are given by symphony
orchestras in the city's two main arts centres, BOZAR (the Centre for Fine Arts
and, built in 1928, possibly the world's first complex of its kind) and Flagey,
opened a decade later in a very different architectural style as the
headquarters of the National Institute for Radio and refurbished as an
independent centre in 1998.

The
Klarafestival separates itself from the general run of events by taking a tough
creative line. “We only commission programmes,” says Sophie, “we don't buy in
existing ones that happen to be on tour. Each concert or music theatre piece is
developed specially. We think it is essential, too, that we absorb the times we
are living in so themes have become the basis.” In 2017 the theme was
migration, exile and identity - issues that have been consuming European
political debate but which music has dealt with for centuries.

“We are
not about just putting nice music on stage. We want to make a point so we had
an orchestra of musicians who were also Syrian refugees [the Syrian Ex Pat
Philharmonic] playing in partnership with the National Orchestra of Belgium and
it was live streamed as well as broadcast. It was a theme that did not make
things easier with our sponsors but that just made us more determined.” For
2018 they are working with the title Alles Wieder Gut (All Is Well), a
deliberately ironic phrase which in German echoes Dr. Pangloss's motto of “all
is best in this best of all possible worlds” in Voltaire's Candide.

The
theme is not necessarily negative though “It is explicitly a call for human
beings to construct a positive world.” There will be an attempt to take the
stoic's view and also to explore the prospect of better times. One element of
this will be a performance (BOZAR 16 March 2018) of Alexander Nemtin's
realisation of the Preface to Scriabin's Mysterium, the increasingly
deranged composer's attempt to write a work that, over a week in a pavilion of
moving stone in the foothills of the Himalayas, would signal the end of
humanity and our replacement by nobler beings. Perhaps it's lucky that only the
preface is being performed, or should our political leaders start to feel
nervous?

These
days the Klarafestival encompasses about thirty events, of which a third are
given by major symphony orchestras, as would be expected for the main evening
broadcast on a classical station. Klara Radio itself puts no production money
into the concerts it carries but it effectively offers payment in kind by using
its commercial side to give air time to the festival's sponsors – a novel
benefit that clearly makes recruitment easier and helps widen the sponsorship
net.

Alongside
the concerts themselves the programme includes debates around the festival
theme which are broadcast too. Away from the big halls in Brussels,
Klarafestival now holds events in Brugge (Bruges) and Antwerp. Increasingly,
though, it is looking for other types of venues – using Brussels' Kaaitheater
for it's more adventurous staged pieces and even venturing into a night club
for Club K - 'taster' concerts with a DJ that allow a very different audience
to sample three different styles of classical music in a place where they would
never expect to find them.

There
are 'flashmob' events in metro stations and last year you could take a turn
trying to conduct a student symphony orchestra in the echoing Ravenstein
Galleries, just outside the festival's offices. There are no reports of the
cacophony that may have resulted! Most unusual of all is the mobile miniature
glass concert hall, with just enough room for a piano and a handful of chairs,
that can pop up on a street corner or outside a café; free for the listeners
inside and transparently beguiling for those wandering by.

Further Information on Klarafestival

Artforms | We include every aspect of music life: concerts, music
theatre, multidisciplinary performances, operas and so on. A conscious effort
is made to find the connection to such other art forms as visual arts or film.
In this way, we offer our audience an unforgettable experience.

Cultural partnerships | We can also thank our many partnerships for our success. We
collaborate structurally with major Flemish and Brussels music and art
institutes like Klara, Bozar, De Munt, Flagey, Kaaitheater, de Hallen van
Schaarbeek, Met-X, deSingel and the Brugse Concertgebouw. In addition, there
are plenty of ad hoc partnerships with such organisations as the
Beursschouwburg, AncienneBelgique, KVS, Conservatorium Brussel and so on.

Audience | For many years now, Klarafestival has been operating within
an international network of prestigious festivals, programmers, orchestras,
ensembles, artists, agencies, production houses and media. High quality,
original concepts and easy-access communication have ensured that Klarafestival
can attract 25,000 paying spectators per year, reaching up to 150,000 listeners
through Radio Klara and up to 14 million European listeners a year via the
European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

Origins | Flanders Festival Brussels was created
in 1968. In 2004 Flanders
Festival Brussels and the VRT (Radio Klara & Canvas) have put their weight
behind creating a unique and audience-friendly broadcasting festival
(Klarafestival) as the opener for the cultural season (September) in Brussels. Flanders
Festival Brussels programmes, produces and finances all concerts in the concert
halls while Klara broadcasts 2 weeks of radio on the theme, the concert
recordings, and so on. The main goal of VRT’s contribution was and remains
strictly to facilitate and communicate.

Since 2014, Klarafestival has
been held in March. Every year, we present current, high-quality and
adventurous performances and concerts with international appeal to as large and
varied an audience as possible in many different venues located not only in
Brussels but also in Antwerpen and Brugge.

Our
unique identity | Klarafestival is a high-quality
international music festival that, based on a western classical music
repertoire, dares to modernize.

Using its Brussels identity as a foundation, Klarafestival
is building a bridge to the outside world and is doing so locally (Brussels),
nationally (Flanders and Wallonia) and internationally with the goal of
enriching people’s lives.

Klarafestival has defined itself as an international music
festival through its artistic collaborations, the international target audience
in attendance in Brussels and its multimedia connection with public
broadcasting and the EBU.